This afternoon in the @UMBCLibrary , we will learn about how visual culture played a crucial role in defining and enforcing slavery for both enslaved and free people in Ancient Rome.
Hope to see you there! #umbchumforum
my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/dresher…
Hope to see you there! #umbchumforum
my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/dresher…
Trimble: In Ancient Rome, tens of thousands of people were enslaved, but yet we know nothing about them. In order to learn about Ancient Rome, you need to understand slavery.
What people in the Roman world saw informed the way they viewed the world and the people who inhabited: visual markers, written labels, sellers’ deceptions, and buyers’ inspections.
All historical slavery, whether Roman or American, was based on a system of oppression and explotation of a group of people. The difference with Roman slavery is that it was not based on race and freedom was more readily within their grasp (we have no sense of how many were freed
This gravestone of M. Publilius Satyr of Capua depicts the sale and purchase of an enslaved man. 
In INSTITUTES OF ORATORY, Quintilian wrote about slave-dealers “who feign color with rouge and real strength with useless fat.” White skin was associates with women and darker skin with men.
There are many texts written about slave sellers describing them as greedy and deceptive, however, these opinions were not shared amongts slave buyers.
Our ancient texts captures the anxieties of buyers about being deceived. In Suetonius’ bio of the first emperor, Augustus, the emperor’s “friends acted as his panders, and stripped and inspected matrons and well-grown girls, as if...the slave dealer was putting them up for sale.”
In Seneca the Younger’s EPISTLES, he equates the inspection of an enslaved person to the inspection of a horse before purchase. He refers to an arm or a leg...not the body of a full person.
Looking (by way of inspection) is a tangible way in which slavery is defined and experienced.
The standard Roman toga (all white) was a visual sign of a man who was a Roman citizen (women who wore these were marked as a prostitute). This was a highly visually literate society. What you wore told people who you were and they should treat you.
The markers of a body on sale in Roman society included: garlands on the head, chains, whitened feet (chalk), caps, bills of sale, and “tituli” or labels.
Visuality permeated slave sales and studying slave slave sales in this way is revealing.
If we look closely, we can see very different experiences of the same institution or situation.
The visual aspects of slave sales resonated in particular ways in the Roman imaginary.
Why plunge into such grim material? Why not focus on Roman architecture?
This raises the question of how do we engage with, or do justice to, an often alien and deeply disturbing society?
This raises the question of how do we engage with, or do justice to, an often alien and deeply disturbing society?
If we are truly historians, we have to look at all aspects in order to get the full picture and a deeper understanding. Roman slavery was a structural feature that was embedded into every facet of life. It forces us to reflect on contemporary structural injustice.
Most importantly, we must remember the people.
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